even today as i walk in the muted grey afternoon the unmistakable rise of the flavor like instant mashed potatoes stains and i'd rather bathe myself in soy sauce and fire lick limbs from limb to hone you out of me the scent of your sweaty afternoon hands on my back the sticky aftermath of the bad news of your tongue stuck hair to neck revolutions rendered in saliva maybe the buzz and groan of sex with you is the only language i can name for the words i am not yours and you are not mine no more intimate strangle holds left to sob love into the sheets the false shoulders the shape shifting after mouth of your coin when it's flipped even today as i walk through the grey cement dreams of an afternoon of this name as a mantra for meat as a genome for opposing sides of love

my ex-tragedy of a partner still loves me (even though there's no way in hell either one of us wants to get back together). my mom is baking bread. i'm drinking scotch in the afternoon sunlight of my apartment. i stink like the latte i accidentally dumped all over myself a few hours ago at the coffee house. i've made zero progress on the diss. i'm still, in someways, hiding from my best friend. who'll know i've been depressed and unhinged whether or not we have a real exchange. i haven't eaten more than some salad and crackers in days. i crave violence and contentedness at the exact same time. i'm staring uncontrollably at nothing. i hate the geographical location of my body. and i can't wait until i'm no longer occupying this space.

soon the world will stop changing shape so quickly beneath my feet that i can't ever find a safe place to stop. the sporadic nature of trying to eat love like hand grenades. i'll sit still and silent with empty hands. graft skin to skin transmutations that you left. the contusions and cursory burns marking the map of the wrong way. we. the badly dubbed foreign film version that became the conversations of us spilt like hot coffee on white bedsheets. the stinking aftermath of the good news that i won't wake up to tune of my alarm clock and loneliness. stumbling to fill pockets full of the fragments of the spotted remnants of myself.

asia dreams of foreign import bootlegs and guns. sharks' teeth and the

she know s that real people. reel. go on becoming and that life isn'tstrictly about pixelationscurledlike hair stylesover linesbut the way life movesthe geography of meaning

oh now that's goodthats something we all regret the point and shoot of our livesto fill picture books withthat won't hold the still that we worked out 10 years lateronto sticky pagesto ruin the printbut not the memory of the fumesthat made it allmake sense inside yourrevolvinginfrareddoorhead

there's this thing i want to tell you about fire.fire, he says. and i say,yes, fire.and we hold still for a few short moments. let the words slip like secrets between old friends. until nothing happens. and we fall shuddering to sheets and he only says that dumb thing that the guy who stole my life from me said once after he broke my skull into bloody bits onto a dirty bathroom floor,you're mine, he saysand i think, damn, i've been under this body beforeand it only offered me up to emergency roomsand lies to my best friendsand living a life, constantly, wearing false namesand being okay with the by wordsi'm fine

and i am sick to death with lyingand avoiding phone callsand with living a life like a lieagain

cant get started its like the damn thing wont turn over and ive lost my keys this morning ive been thinking too much about white whales and ahab and the way problems that arent worth it can swallow us i dont want to bring you down here with me but im getting tired of losing sleep worrying over you and the bullshit you pass off as valid excuses for love it shouldnt be a full time job no it shouldnt feel like a full time job